Laser produced interference fringes from mechanical type mediums have been previously detected in order to extrapolate movement detection. See for example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,354,311 to Vali et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 3,639,063 to Krogstad et al.; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,086,808 to Camac.
Laser produced interference fringe patterns have also been observed through ferrofluids by two of the co-inventors of the subject invention. See for example, Du et al. "Thermal Lens coupled magneto-optical Effect in a Ferrfluid", Applied Physics Letters 65(14), Oct. 3, 1994, pp 1844-1846; Du et al. "Dynamic Interference Patterns From Ferrofluids", Modern Physics Letters 3, Vol. 9, No. 25(1995), pp.1643-1647; Zhang et al. "Two Mechanisms and a Scaling Relation for Dynamics in Ferrofluids", Physical Review Letters Vol. 77, No. 2, July 1996, pp. 390-393; and Du et al. "Nonlinear Optical Effects in Ferrofluids Induced by Temperature and Concentration Cross-Coupling", Applied Phys. Letters 72(3), January 1998, pp 272-274.
Interference fringe rings have been created by passing laser beams through liquid crystals in order to measure the power density of the laser beam. See U.S. Pat. No. 5,621,525 to Vogeler et al., which is assigned to the University of Central Florida, the assignee of the subject invention.
However, the cited art are generally limited to detection of fringes along a single x and y axis. None of the cited prior art allows for the detection of fringe patterns along all three dimensions (x,y,z) to be useful as gyroscopes and accelerometers.